Web server Tips

PHP safe mode

PHP safe mode has to be turned off. It is deprecated and has been removed in newer PHP versions. Verify its status with PHP Version and Information, and look for safe_mode on/off. If it is on, then add this line to php.ini to turn it off:

safe_mode = Off

Enable the SPDY / http_v2 protocol

If you want to enable SPDY for Apache please note the Known Issues of this module to avoid problems after enabling it.

<mod-spdy

Apache Tuning

Maximum number of Apache processes

An Apache process uses around 12MB of RAM. Apache should be configured so that the maximum number of HTTPD processes times 12MB is lower than the amount of RAM. Otherwise the system begins to swap and the performance goes down.

KeepAlive should be configured with sensible defaults

The KeepAlive directive enables persistent HTTP connections, allowing multiple requests to be sent over the same TCP connection. This reduces latency by as much as 50%. Especially in combination with the periodic checks of the sync client the following settings are recommended:

KeepAlive On
KeepAliveTimeout 100
MaxKeepAliveRequests 200

mod_gzip

mod_gzip should be used because it speeds up the transfer of data and helps to free server memory, and HTTP connections are closed faster.

MPM

Apache prefork has to be used. Don’t use threaded mpm with mod_php because PHP is currently not thread safe.

Hostname Lookups

# cat /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
...
HostnameLookups off

Log files

Log files should be switched off for maximum performance.

Comment out the CustomLog directive. Keep ErrorLog to be able to track down errors.